Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Sobering News: Iraq War Vets Recount Atrocities from US Occupation

Dahr Jamail's latest report "Enough Is Enough, It's Time to Get Out" recounts the daily horror stories shared by Iraq War veterans in Seattle in what was "a continuation of the "Winter Soldier" hearings held in Silver Spring, Maryland in March."

If this isn't enough incentive to pull out of that occupation, what is?

"We were told we'd be deploying to Iraq and that we needed to get ready to havelittle kids and women shoot at us," Sergio Kochergin, a former Marine who servedtwo deployments in Iraq, told the audience. "It was an attempt to portray Iraqisas animals. We were supposed to do humanitarian work, but all we did was harasspeople, drive like crazy on the streets, pretending it was our city and we coulddo whatever we wanted to do."

">Dahr Jamail's latest report "Enough Is Enough, It's Time to Get Out" recounts the daily horror stories shared by Iraq War veterans in Seattle in what was "a continuation of the "Winter Soldier" hearings held in Silver Spring, Maryland in March."If this isn't enough incentive to pull out of that occupation, what is?

"We were told we'd be deploying to Iraq and that we needed to get ready to have little kids and women shoot at us," Sergio Kochergin, a former Marine who served two deployments in Iraq, told the audience. "It was an attempt to portray Iraqis as animals. We were supposed to do humanitarian work, but all we did was harass people, drive like crazy on the streets, pretending it was our city and we could do whatever we wanted to do."

Kochergin continued, "We were constantly told everybody there wants to killyou, everybody wants to get you. In the military, we had racism within everyrank and it was ridiculous. It seemed like a joke, but that joke turned intodestroying peoples' lives in Iraq."

"I was in Husaiba with a sniper platoon right on the Syrian border andwe would basically go out on the town and search for people to shoot," Kocherginsaid. "The rules of engagement (ROE) got more lenient the longer we were there.So if anyone had a bag and a shovel, we were to shoot them. We were allowed totake our shots at anything that looked suspicious. And at that point in time,everything looked suspicious."

Kochergin added, "Later on, we had no ROE at all. If you see somethingthat doesn't seem right, take them out." He concluded by saying, "Enough isenough, it's time to get out of there."

The huge disconnect between rhetoric fed to the American public/protoplasm at home and the reality on the ground in US-occupied Iraq boggles the still-working mind. No wonder the Republican agenda is based on dumbing-down and distraction - to coverup for their blatant crimes, lies, and cruel policies.

We claim to oppose racism and promote democracy and higher values. Like this, perhaps?

Doug Connor was a first lieutenant in the army and worked as a surgical nurse inIraq. While there he worked as part of a combat support unit, and said most ofthe patients he treated were Iraqi civilians. "There were so many people thatneeded treatment we couldn't take all of them," he said. "When a bombinghappened and 45 patients were brought to us, it was always Americans treatedfirst, then Kurds, then the Arabs."

Or how about these "family values"?

Connor added quietly, "It got to the point where we started calling the Iraqipatients 'range balls' because, just like on the driving range (in golf), youdon't care about losing them."

So that's how they laid down the "groundwork for peace" as W claimed? Maybe he was thinking of the peace one finds in cemeteries? But there's more than just the "peace" of death.

"I watched Iraqi Police bring in someone to interrogate," Seth Manzel, a vehiclecommander and machine gunner in the U.S. Army, told the audience. "There werefour men on the prisoner...one was pummeling his kidneys with his fists, anotherwas inserting a bottle up his rectum. It looked like a frat house gang-rape."

Of course, they will say "those were Iraqis"... But who set the example for them? Abu Ghraib, no doubt - which was no exception.This has to be Job One: Get out of Iraq asap. Occupation can never be victory. It was a mistake, a lie, a humanitarian disaster, a shame, a gigantic drain on the economy, and now a burgeoning tragedy.